


Chasing The Moon

by maevestrom



Series: FE Rarepair Week 2019 [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Autumn, Book Club, CW: Death, Creating Memories, F/F, FE Rarepair Week 2019, Memories, Religious Discussion, Wicca, and there's nothing you can do about it, both nyx and oboro are trans, i really try to screw it up as little as possible i s2g, leaves, luv yall tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-16 14:10:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20836208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maevestrom/pseuds/maevestrom
Summary: All I know is that the leaves are orange, night comes a little earlier every day, and it’s too beautiful a moment to let go.FE Rarepair Week Day 1: Leaves





	Chasing The Moon

**Author's Note:**

> I uh we're not gonna talk about the whole being a day late thing. I may have thought the week started on Monday for too long. 
> 
> I do my best to be respectful of Wicca despite me not knowing jack shit about really anything ever. If there are things I got wrong, I deeply apologize.

I guess I just got kind of lonely.

The people that I know… well, they aren’t many. A lot of them are dead. They probably shouldn’t be, I’m only twenty-four, but a lot of death has happened. I keep thinking about them a lot lately. It’s like not knowing what you have until it’s gone, but after a while, you start knowing what you have and when it’s gone it doesn’t hurt until later when you feel lonely. Sometimes I wonder why most girls have a circle of friends and I have a galley of ghosts. 

And then… then there’s Nyx. 

The others could be summed up quickly when they were alive. Concerned neighbor. Nosy classmate. Big eating goofball. Cleaning lady who keeps dropping things. A teenaged girl who couldn’t shut her mouth. A couple of really distant parents that you still can’t stop mourning. Nyx can’t be described that easily. It would take too long, be too messy, and make me face too many fundamental truths about myself that I don’t like. 

I try to piece it together one September night as the two of us walk together under a volley of trees. It’s a no-reason walk, not too far from the apartment building we share, where I do fashion work and she holds her book club in a home I think I am spending more time in than my own, cause when the universe hands you a gift like a great person in your own hotel complex, you don’t give a half-assed answer. So, for the nth day in a row since we became actual friends about two months ago, we’re walking to I guess the coffee shop we frequent because they’re open 24/7. 

“I do hope you brought your sketchbook with you,” Nyx tells me when we start walking, after the hellos and hugs and the way her skin feels when my hands reach under her cape and long plum hair to rest on her shoulders, leathery and gaunt. 

I pat my bag. “As always.”

She smiles. “Good. Your designs are rather gorgeous. I can’t wait to see them.”

I blush, unable to respond in a coherent way. She just drops this incredible kindness  _ solely _ on me like megaton bombs that she acts like she doesn’t notice. She giggles, marching in her boots to make sure that she’s next to me. 

I guess the  _ thank-you-holy-shit  _ is implied and has passed because we get to talking about Nyx setting up the book club. Helpfully, I offer “I can bring drinks!” because trying not to tell her that I’m not really into hot tea, just like I’m not really into old horror novels, which is really unlike how I’m into her. 

“You don’t have to,” she says dismissively. 

_ Bitch, I want to,  _ I think, but I let her get into the zone, thinking out loud in words that are hard to focus on. Maybe I don’t really belong in her book club but not that I really mind as long as she’s there leading the conversation amongst her  _ band of misfits  _ that I guess I am now a part of. I mean, I am kind of boring and traditional so I always feel like Band of Misfits Featuring Oboro Saito, but she keeps me around. I think once we both put together how we’re the only two trans girls in the club, we sort of gravitated to each other because, hey, we’re sisters! I kind of hope we aren’t now because there’s a lot I put up with for her and that would be very non-analogous to how I feel. 

I check the leaves as she goes on. I do it alone but it’s always different. Maybe it’s because I wanna remember what the leaves look like over us. Remember that they were so yellow that they looked like a highlighter I used on my many schoolbooks. Or comforting orange, not like a fire, but like themselves, I guess. Like pumpkins and sunsets and warm blankets. Or when they turn red like blush and lipstick and other things that stick out on Nyx’s face between pale skin and dark black jewelry. I try and remember it a bit too intently. I think I’d just like to have it.

“The harvest moon is coming up,” Nyx points out, snapping me to my senses. She always wears really thin clothes and a long black cape and I wonder how the hell she hasn’t frozen over.  _ I’ve got hot blood,  _ she says. Apparently it’s lava. A little dazed and still shaking off my own thoughts, I look through the leaves at the moon as we walk by. “Not right now,” she says with weary amusement. 

“Duh, I was just thinking of it now.” The leaves are light orange now. When they fall, one hits my face. When I pick it off, the underside feels like velvet. I hold onto it for some reason and continue talking so we don’t let the conversation die. “The harvest moon? Think that’s like… that’s the full moon coming up, right?” When Nyx nods with a surprised hum that makes me smile like a cocky bitch, like  _ yeah, Nyx, I  _ knew  _ that shit,  _ now  _ what?  _ I add “does that do anything to your spells or all that?” in a tone that basically has me prepped to look like the total Wiccan non-participant I am.

Nyx shrugs. “I find that they are stronger. More potent. That’s just my own experiences, however.” 

“Pfff, you’re probably onto something,” I counter with a giggle. Nyx isn’t a lifelong Wiccan, but she knows her shit. She’s a little loosey-goosey with the rules, or at least that’s what she says. Sounds like a safe-guard in case she ever messes up, which I totally do too.

She nods her thanks. I can see it out of the corner of my eye. “At the very least, I feel like I will be more confident.”

“The full moon  _ is  _ pretty,” I add sagely. 

Nyx snorts. “That it is.”

I brush it off with a giggle. We’ve kind of been that way. She’s a little more practical and I chase shiny objects. Nyx softens next to me and I feel her eyes on my face. I look into them and we stop. We don’t blush or look away; she’s thirty-six and says she hates wasting her time on things like shyness, and I just don’t wanna pick up the slack (even though I’m probably burning inside-out). 

“Rest assured that your health will be in my prayers,” she tells me in that serious tone that says something deeper than I expected, and all I can think of is how the leaves are turning orange, and maybe why I’m remembering that is because what if that’s all I have left of her this time next year? That the leaves were orange and I got chills looking at her? I drop the leaf and take her hands. They’re cold; hot blood my ass. I look into her eyes because, you know what, maybe she’s onto something with not wasting time. 

I guess if I wanted to describe her as simply as I do the people I’ve lost, I could file her away as unique book club holding Wiccan who says things like they don’t matter except the few things that she does mean and she only gets like that around me and damn it I think I’m hooked and yeah this is already too long and deep to just compartmentalize but help me, what else can I do? Everything I want to do feels too small. Everything I want to say feels too big. All I know is that the leaves are orange, night comes a little earlier every day, and it’s too beautiful a moment to let go.

“Do me a favor.” I’m not great at asking things. I’m very blunt and to the point so I do not waste time before I shrink and decide I never need to ask anything for the rest of my life. Nyx tilts her head at me daringly. “I’d rather you said a blessing thing towards your own health, okay?” Pleading: “Can you please do that for me?”

She makes sure she meets my eyes. “Oboro…” It’s like she’s realizing something about me that, you know, I guess I had to share by now. I just nod, a lump in my throat. 

Then: “You know I can do both, right?”

I laugh at her, and that’s really when I realize I was just crying. “Okay, whatever,” I protest. She reaches up and wipes a tear from my face. I kind of like being that girl for her, I realize. The younger, more emotional, inexplicably tall lady. It’s an identity, I guess. “Seriously, though, make sure you do. If the goddesses or all that kinda pick and choose what blessings to count or not, I want yours to count first.”

“You are something else, Oboro.” She’s smiling. 

We’re quiet for a few moments, and it does feel like a moment. Like the type of moment that I will remember more than just having orange leaves. Like the kind of moment that I’ll feel rather than remember. Like I’m doing something important and fable-like. Like I’m chasing the moon for this woman. 

“Oboro, might you do me a favor in kind?”

I nod. Hell, I’m in this deep, I am not about to stop now. 

“I’d like you to participate in this harvest moon with me.” 

I grin. “Oh my  _ God. _ That sounds  _ hella  _ nice.” I didn’t realize I was waiting for an offer like this until I had it, the opportunity to be someone’s person for the event. Then I warily ask “Is it a celebration?” because if there are other people I do not think that I should be as enthusiastic. Like, is it wrong to wanna make religious ceremonies a date?

“Not typically,” she says with some reluctance. “I, uh… I would have more faith in this were I not trying to bless my own health. It would feel egotistical.”

“Ohhhh.” I beam. “Yeah, I’ll totally be there, if you can deal with an absolute know-nothing for the day. I’m already excited!”

She giggles. As much as she likes being shelled off, she tends to giggle a lot, even around her band of misfits. “You’ll be fine, Oboro.”

_Hell yeah, I’ll be fine._ _I am gonna bless the _shit _out of you, you beautiful amazing woman. You don’t know the half of it._

Nyx matches the light in my eyes. She’s not usually so soft. She’s generally a little rough and blunt and just like the skin in her hands and shoulders can be cold and leathery. This is a new Nyx, or maybe just a Nyx I am seeing differently. She seems like… I don’t know. Aware. Does she know how I feel? A lot of the people I knew didn’t know they were dying. I know she thinks of it, that she’s tried to be frank about death since we met. But I don’t know her that well yet. Does she ever wonder if she matters? If she would leave a trace? I’d ask… but she  _ has _ , so much so that I guess I just can’t think of it. 

We decide quietly to start to walk again and I remember that the leaves are orange, not warm yet, and I guess in retrospect this was only a moment, but I don’t really have any idea of how brave I am for making it. For letting her in. I just hope she knows. I hope she knows how much I’m risking to feel how I feel about her. That I couldn’t forget her. That I couldn’t compartmentalize her. That I don’t want to.


End file.
